Placencia, Belize

As I hinted in my last post, Dave and I just returned from two fabulous weeks in Belize and Guatemala.

The trip was partially to celebrate our fifth wedding anniversary at the end of May. When I returned from Fiji three years ago, I had Dave promise that we would go there for our fifth wedding anniversary since it topped both of our lists for all-time favourite places but we had each travelled there separately. As we got closer to actually planning the trip, we realized it was a long way to travel for a beach vacation plus I had a significant balance of Aeroplan points that were about to expire but not enough to get us to Fiji.

So I began to search for destinations where my points would get us... and found Belize.

(If you are looking to fly on points, Belize is a fantastic option. The flights are daily through Houston with very reasonable flight times and stop overs compared to Hawaii and the rest of the Caribbean. For example, had we chosen to go to St Lucia, the flights would have taken us from Calgary to Edmonton to Vancouver to Toronto to St Lucia. Ridiculous!)

We flew to Belize City via Houston. Our flight arrived late afternoon, too late to catch a bus on to anywhere, so we opted to catch a flight on TropicAir to Placencia at the southern end of Belize.

The flight was on a tiny 12 seater plane.


Our plane!

My parents had forewarned us that one passenger actually gets to sit in the seat beside the pilot so when they made the call for boarding Dave, who is normally the absolutely last passenger to board a plane, ran to the front of the line to make sure he got that seat!

The flight flew 15 minutes to Dangriga, landed to unload passengers, then flew 15 minutes further down the coast to Placencia. It was completely worthwhile to pay the extra for the flights simply to see the coast line and barrier reef from the air.

I found it a little unnerving being able to see the pilot in action though... each time we got a couple hundred feet in the air, he would switch the plane into autopilot and then proceed to sit with his hands in his pockets until we were on the approach for landing. I am well aware that most of the time planes are flown on autopilot but it is still unsettling to be in such a small plane and see the pilot sitting with his hands off the steering!

Look ma no hands!

Once we arrived in Placencia, we made our way to the Seaspray Hotel and to our room right on the beach! Not even 30 feet from the water!

Our room

View from our room

And then we went into vacation mode...

The next three days were spent swimming, reading, sleeping, eating and walking. This is one of the first vacations Dave and I have ever planned around doing nothing and we took full advantage of it!

The sidewalk

Where I spent the majority of my days

Rumfish Restaurant

DeTatch Restaurant

Espada's Yard - best BBQ in Belize!

Downtown Placencia

Amy

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Guess Where We Have Been?

Two new pins in the map.

Amy

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Hilda Lodge

Are you sick of ski posts yet? Thankfully this is the last one.

After the Discovery Lodge and Assiniboine Lodge trips, Dave managed to stay home a whole week before flying off once again. This time to Hilda Lodge in the Valkyr Range near Nakusp, BC.

The terrain around Hilda is quite committing so I was more nervous than normal about Dave heading out on this trip. This lodge also had WIFI which allowed Dave to Skype me every night. I am not sure if this hindered or helped... it was almost worse worrying about whether or not I would hear from him every night as opposed to knowing that no news is good news.

Unfortunately on the second day of skiing, Dave hit a rock while skiing and suffered a small fracture on his ankle. He managed to hold out for the remainder of the week, even continuing to ski to as often as he could fit his swollen ankle into his ski boot.

Despite the injury, he still managed to have a fantastic trip. Unfortunately the injury pretty much marks the end of this years ski season.

A week after this trip we moved on to something completely different then skiing...

Amy

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How To: Create a DIY Travel Map

Inspired by my sister-in-law, I decided to create a map to plot all of our travels!

It is was fun to remember all of the amazing places we have been... and to see all of the places we have left to explore.

Materials:

• Map (Cavallini World Map Wrapping Paper from Paper Source, only $3.95!)
• Frame (20"x28" Ribba Frame from IKEA, only $19.99)
• Cork (24"x48" roll from Michael's)
• Spray Adhesive
• Contact Cement
• Utility Knife
• Foam roller or brush
• Scissors
• Roller
• Map Pins (Staples, only $2.69)

Step 1: Cut the Cork

Using the fibreboard from the back of the frame as a template, use the knife to cut the cork to size to match the frame.

Step 2: Adhere the Cork

Using a foam roller or brush, coat the fibreboard and cork with a thin layer of contact cement. Allow the cement to dry to tacky as per the instructions on the bottle.

Once tacky, glue the cork onto the fibreboard, sticky sides together, and roll smooth.

Weight down the cork and allow the glue to dry.

Step 3: Adhere the Map

Coat the cork and back side of the map with a generous layer of spray adhesive. Make sure to spray in a well ventilated area and to well protect your work surface - everything is going to get sticky!

Allow the glue to dry to tacky as per the instructions on the bottle. Place the map onto the cork, sticky sides together, and roll smooth. Trim if required.

Step 4: Frame the Map

Once the adhesive has dried, place the map into the frame.

Step 5: Pin Away!

Of course, I could not just randomly pin our map... I had to come up with a colour coded system... red is my travels, blue is David's travels, green is our travels together, yellow is places we have both been but not together, white is significant locations (our home in Calgary, the location of our wedding in Tofino) and black is where Scout has travelled on his own (Silversmith Farms, South Carolina).

Now we just have to work at filling the map up!

Amy

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Assiniboine Lodge

After almost not making it out of Discovery Lodge in time to catch his next helicopter, Dave headed out to Assiniboine Lodge in Mount Assiniboine Provincial Park, BC for a week of skiing with his dad and brother.

This time I was lucky enough to be able to join him on the Friday! Although Dave is an old pro when it comes to helicopters, this was only my third time in one so I was extremely excited. Friday morning the weather took a turn for the worse and for an hour or so, they weren't even certain we were going to be able to fly in (which would have been disastrous considering I had the food for the whole group!). Eventually the pilot decided we were going to "give it a try" - not very encouraging words when talking about a helicopter! After a long bumpy ride and several landing attempts, I did make it safely to  the lodge where I joined the guys for three days of amazing skiing.

  

   

  

We stayed in the Naiset Huts, located just across the meadows from the main lodge. The huts are a great budget option at only $25 per person per night. The huts are extremely basic, with only bunk beds, wood burning stoves and a common cook shelter, but they provide access to the same spectacular skiing as the lodge at a fraction of the cost. Plus you can still take advantage of many of the lodge's services: beer, wine, fire logs, showers and saunas.

Instead of paying for the helicopter ride out, we decided to challenge ourselves with the 26 km ski out to Mount Shark. Having hiked the trail the summer previous, we knew that it was a mostly flat route... but I don't think we appreciated how flat until about 3 hours into the 6 hour long trudge along in our heavy touring skis.

I have never been so jealous of people in cross country skis!

Amy

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